Joe Hisaishi — Spirited Away (2001)
Adding another soundtrack to the collection: Joe Hisaishi’s score for one of those films that probably needs no introduction — Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away.
And I’m not surprised in the slightest that Hayao Miyazaki kept returning to Hisaishi as a collaborator. The man has an extraordinary talent for dressing magical images in equally enchanted sounds. What’s more, he does it without the music ever competing with the animation. It never tries to become more important than what we see on screen.
It simply makes the world breathe.
And I think that is exactly why it is so difficult to imagine Ghibli films without his music.
With Spirited Away, this becomes especially apparent.
Miyazaki’s film is filled with creatures, spirits, strange places and situations that, in the hands of a less talented filmmaker, could easily have turned into nothing more than a children’s fantasy.
But Hisaishi understands perfectly well that magic does not always need a huge orchestra and fireworks.
Sometimes, all you need is a few piano notes.
And the piano is one of the most important guides here.
Simple, repeating phrases can be both childlike and melancholic. Innocent, yet carrying some strange sense of longing underneath.
Like remembering something we may never have actually experienced.
And that is probably the greatest strength of this music.
Nostalgia for a place that never existed.
In just a few minutes, Hisaishi can create the feeling that we have known these places forever. That we have travelled on this train before, seen this landscape, stood on that empty road.
And yet all of it exists exclusively inside an animated film.
The music makes us believe otherwise.
There are, of course, moments full of energy, grandeur and fairy-tale extravagance, but the quieter moments are just as important. The ones where, essentially, very little happens.
That is when Hisaishi leaves space.
He does not talk over the image.
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He allows silence and emotion to breathe.
And that is precisely why the soundtrack works so well outside the film, too.
This matters, because not every film score can detach itself from the image. Some soundtracks are extraordinary while you are watching the film, but once removed from it, they lose much of their power.
Here, it is completely different.
You can place the record on the turntable, close your eyes, and suddenly find yourself somewhere between the world of humans and the realm of spirits.
And I think that is what Hisaishi’s music is really about.
It does not tell us that magic exists.
It makes us forget, for a moment, that we ever doubted it.
Listening to Spirited Away, I find myself increasingly convinced that Ghibli’s films without Hisaishi’s music would simply be different films.
Perhaps still beautiful. Still extraordinary. Still filled with Miyazaki’s imagination.
But missing one of their most important layers.
Because Ghibli is not just about the image.
It is also about sound.
The piano. The orchestra. Individual melodies. All those tiny musical moments that stay in your head long after the film has ended.
And Spirited Away is perhaps one of the finest examples of how a composer can become part of a world created by a director.
Not an addition.
Not an illustrator.
A co-creator of the magic.
Joe Hisaishi — Spirited Away (2001)
Another enchanted piece for the collection.
The original Polish version on AftertoneBlog: https://aftertoneblog.wordpress.com/2026/08/31/joe-hisaishi-spirited-away-2001/
